Tag: BJ Penn

Last week we showed you a BJ Penn video interview from Karyn Bryant in which the former champion vaguely spoke about his future, saying he had no plans to fight but refusing to say the word “retire.” However, according to UFC president Dana White, Penn told him that same week in Stockholm that he would in fact fight again.

“I heard some sh_t that he said he was going to retire and all this stuff,” White said. “[BJ] was like, ‘Nah, I’m going to fight again,’” MMA Fighting reports.

So there you have it. Despite saying that he was “done,” after losing to Nick Diaz last October, BJ will scrap again, according to his boss. I suppose we all figured as much, considering how much Penn loves fighting and how much money he makes doing it.

But the question is, who would BJ fight? Penn has only won one bout in his last five, albeit all against very top competition. At lightweight, the 33 year-old has seemed to have lost a bit of of quickness and reaction time — which is death in the lighter weight classes, and specifically for astalking counter-puncher like Penn. At welterweight, Penn is forced to pack on 15 pounds of unnecessary bulk, which has always been unfair but his crazy talent still allowed him to be successful there.

(Come on brah, would you give up this life to wrestle with a bunch of fence holders? | Photo via FIGHT!)

My good friend Karyn Bryant, host of MMA Heat, recently interviewed former welterweight and lightweight champion BJ Penn and asked him if he was still retired. Penn said he was grateful for the attention but that he doesn’t intend to fight right now.

“At the moment, I don’t have any plans to fight,” Penn said. “I have nothing scheduled, I’m just kind of taking it easy at this point in my life. As of right now, yeah, I’m not entering the Octagon anytime soon.”

Penn says that losing to Nick Diaz last fall was not the only reason he decided to stop competing. “The fight was a tough fight but I don’t think it was just that fight. I’ve been thinking about this for a while,” he said.

Bryant revealed to Penn that she had spoken to his boxing coach Jason Parillo, and that Parillo said he recently held pads for BJ. So why would Penn be hitting pads if he was retired?

According to Gilbert Melendez’s trainer, Cesar Gracie, the UFC are in talks to have either former UFC lightweight champ BJ Penn or former WEC lightweight champ Anthony Pettis challenge his charge for his Strikeforce strap next.

“Melendez’s situation is complex right now. We still don’t have an opponent, date or place set. They said he could fight in San Jose but it’ll probably change. They mentioned Josh Thomson but then said it was not going to happen”, Gracie explained.“I spoke to [UFC matchmaker] Joe Silva and he told me maybe some UFC fighters will go to Strikeforce. We would really like to see him fighting Pettis or BJ, but we are still not sure about what’s going to happen.”

Given that “Showtime” mentioned yesterday that he is considering dropping down to featherweight to challenge Jose Aldo in the near future, it would seem that the UFC brass are leaning towards “The Prodigy” for the bout. It would make sense since Penn has been uncharacteristically mum about his fighting future since his last fight and likely would have been mulling over the offer to swing over to the UFC’s sister promotion, considering how much less promotion and exposure it gets.

Nick Diaz is unquestionably the most gangster fighter in MMA history. This Saturday at UFC 143, Diaz will face Carlos Condit for the UFC’s interim welterweight title. It’s safe to assume that Condit will be body-shotted and called a “bitch” at least once. Here’s a tribute to some of Diaz’s most gangsterish moments, in animated GIF form. Enjoy.

We’ve seen some bad, bad MMA fan art in our time. (Like, reallybad.) So it came as a relief when we recently stumbled upon MMAFanMade, a tumblr account that showcases the best MMA-themed art and artists on the Internet. We decided to cherry-pick some of the site’s highlights, mix in a few old classics, and put ‘em all together in the gallery after the jump. Check it out below, and if you’ve done any MMA-themed artwork yourself, please share links in the comments section. We promise that our criticism will be mostly constructive.

God damn you, ReX13. His running gag this week inspired us to revive an old, dead CagePotato feature, in which we take a moment to recognize some of your efforts in the comments section. Will we forget about this by next Friday? Maybe. Maybe not. All we have is this moment. And now, the eight greatest comments of the week…

ReX13 on “Report: Miesha Tate to Defend Strikeforce Title Against Ronda Rousey on March 3rd” [selected highlights]:
- “If you weren’t pretty, it wouldn’t matter what you said or didn’t say. That’s why you’re getting this attention.” – Miesha Tate
- “Man, Stalin was a real asshole, killing his own people like that.” – Pol Pot
- “Wow, that Bachmann chick is stuck on turbo-crazy. The only reason people are giving her the time of day is because she’s a relatively attractive woman in the Republican party. Does she hear the words that are coming out of her mouth?” – Sarah Palin
- “Goddammit, I’ve spent fifteen years in this neighborhood trying to increase property vaules, and a whole fucking passel of kettles just moved in next door. With their hippity hop music and Tyler Perry movies…..we better get a dog, honey.” – Pot
- “Bobby Flay is kinda a douche, you guys.” – Guy Fieri
- “The Duggars should stop having children. Can they even handle the children they already have?” – Nadya “Octomom” Suleman
- “That Octomom is such an attention whore.” – Kate Gosselin
- “Fuck you, bitch.” – Nadya Suleman

BJ Penn has apparently not come to terms with the beating he received at the hands of Nick Diaz. Below is his latest posting on his Twitter account:

@nickdiaz209 Look how much bigger you are in this pic..I thought you were gonna scrap from the beginning homie? What was that coward fence holding strategy to tire out the smaller man? Street fighter my ass! I made you fight like glass jaw @jonfitchdotnet poser! I’ll be ready for that weak bs next time we fight!

At some point it is up to those around you to protect you from yourself. To take you aside and let you know you are wrong and help save you from your folly. Unfortunately for Penn he is surrounded by “Yes Men” that are unwilling to do that. The outcome will be predictable, resulting in a fighter that will never push himself to the fullest and will always have excuses for his losses.

“@nickdiaz209 Look how much bigger you are in this pic..” he wrote, referring to the photo above. “I thought you were gonna scrap from the beginning homie? What was that coward fence holding strategy to tire out the smaller man? Street fighter my ass! I made you fight like glass jaw @jonfitchdotnet poser! I’ll be ready for that weak bs next time we fight!”